


Starlight

by hikikomoron



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, Hospitals, M/M, Paralysis, Paraplegia, angst but happy ending i promise, emotional stuff idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1398541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikikomoron/pseuds/hikikomoron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which there are no werewolves, and Scott McCall only knows Derek Hale by a mutual friendship. He's been friends with Stiles for years, but the only way to visit or contact now is through his mother, who works at the local hospital. Why would that be relevant...?</p><p>In a car accident that killed his mother, Stiles Stilinski was left paraplegic, paralyzed below his waist. For the past six or seven months, he's been recuperating in the hospital, but his recovery has been a long, hard road so far due to unseen complications. He's come to terms with his disability, and the fact he'll never really live a normal life from then on. Things seem bleak, and he's begun to understand life in a weird existential way because it suddenly seems so short. But everything changes when Scott shows up at the hospital with a friend that Stiles had never met before.</p><p>A multi-chapter fic about experiencing pain, moving on, accepting losses, and living in the moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I always thought it was kind of interesting how we learn how to cherish life. We as humans. Most of us, anyway. We search and we search, and we try and we try and then one day we kind of... stop trying - but that's when it hits us. It's a downer to think that most people won't find what they're searching for, that most people won't ever really cherish life. A lot of people go running to churches and gods and therapists. Personally, I don't believe a priest or a therapist can tell us how to be whole again. We're already whole. People just suck at realizing that and being happy with that.

I don't know.

I think a lot. And read a lot of web articles. I wasn't always an expert on existentialism, and I hate that I've only found myself now, of all times. I guess sometimes it takes some really shitty things to happen to people before they realize how important everything around them is. I don't tell people this, though. Not even my nurse. I just kinda sit and think about it, since it's all I can do.

Which, you know, speaking of shitty things happening to people.

"Stiles!" the knock came at the door. I looked over from my desk, not surprised to see Nurse McCall standing in the threshold. I tipped my head back in acknowledgement. She came around a lot, not just because it was her job or because I've been best friends with her son, but because she actually cared about me. She didn't like to see me just sitting around the hospital room all day or putting my headphones on and shutting out all the world for over 24 hours. Miss McCall was always smiling. It was a good thing. "It's time to draw blood again!" she said it with a sing-song voice, like blood work had become a weekly pastime for us.

It might as well have been a game. For the past three or four weeks, Miss McCall would choose a day to drop by and draw blood and check me for any symptoms of illness. Apparently, something about paraplegia makes it easy to get pneumonia. It was the reason I was here in the first place. After the car accident and everything, they cleared me to go home, but over the summer my legs started forming sores so they had to send me back here to make sure there wasn't anything weird going on.

I wheeled myself back and over to the side of the bed, and she brought in a little cart full of sterilized needles, tourniquets, and the like. I'd gotten really good at using my wheelchair in a surprisingly short amount of time. I could get myself around the house and around the hospital, for that matter, and the accident was only last winter. It was September now. The air was getting chilly and leaves were changing their color, painting the streets up and down with fiery tones. It was also the time of the year when sickness started floating around in the air, jumping from person to person. All the more reason for me to be at the hospital, I supposed.

Pulling the sleeve of my hoodie above my elbow, I looked up at her as she prepared everything. "Is Scott coming over today?" I asked as she tied the tourniquet over my bicep. The feeling of the needle against the inside of my elbow was really familiar by now.

"Yeah! He said he was gonna bring you some food?" she looked at me for reassurance as she lifted the syringe and went back to her cart.

Yes. God bless Scott McCall. He was bringing me food a lot lately, but I wasn't complaining. If it weren't for his Taco Bell runs and various other takeout, then I would be sitting here eating hospital cafeteria slop, which I wager wouldn't be much better than pre-paid school meals. Miss McCall heard my sigh of relief and chuckled softly, tying a little cotton bandage around the puncture.

"I'm gonna go get this checked out, alright?" she said, getting ready to leave. "I'll probably be back to check in before the night ends." And she was gone.

My favorite thing about my best friend's mom was that she didn't look at me like she was sorry. Neither did Scott, for that matter. But there were people, doctors, nurses, my own dad, sometimes. I'd be wheeling myself around and it's not that hard but people, just... they look at me. They look at me and their eyebrows furrow and they get that straight-line lip thing and a sad look in their eyes like they wished they could help me.

I don't know if its pity or something, but I don't want it. Yeah, being paralyzed sucks ass, I didn't ask for this to happen to me. But it did happen. And I was alive. I wasn't worried about tomorrow, I was just here and that's enough - I'm enough.

Man, I needed to stop thinking so hard.

 

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when Scott arrived at the hospital. I could tell he was here because all the nurses know him and they always want to know if he's grown any more, when he's gonna get that damn hair cut, how's the girlfriend, what's lacrosse like. The front desk was always loud whenever Scott showed up, so I just stayed at my desk opening and closing an extra tab on Google Chrome until he knocked on the door and then opened it right after.

"Took you long enough, loser," I smiled. Wheeling myself back, I went over to meet him.

He laughed and rolled his eyes, the bag in his hand crinkling as he set it on the nightstand by my bed. My room was a little different from most hospital rooms, only because Miss McCall could help me out. I had a decent-sized TV across from my bed, and Scott being the godsend human being that is, brought his Xbox over when I first got readmitted.

"First, here," he said, handing me a little rectangular package. I didn't even need to see it to know it was a video game.

I took it and very promptly fistpumped in the air. "Halo 4. Yes, Scott McCall, yes. You better watch out, I've been playing Halo since I was like ten," I threatened.

"Aaand this." Scott went into the plastic bag he brought in and pulled out something wrapped in tinfoil that had a printed logo on it, held together by a sticker. When I received it from him, it was still warm in my hands, and smelled like cheese and beef and all things delicious and spicy. With a content sigh, I leaned back in my wheelchair.

"Burritos," I smiled, humming with satisfaction. "Can I like, kiss you, dude?"

Scott gave me a look, sitting on the end of my lame hospital bed. "Uh, no, dude, you can't," he shook his head and I couldn't help but snigger at the awkward air of it all. making Scott mildly uncomfortable was very fun.

 

I never knew I could eat a burrito that fast. I did, though, and I was very proud of myself. Unfortunately, the Halo 4 package was empty. I wasn't surprised. It was just like Scott to end up putting discs in the wrong cases or just leaving cases empty.

Making idle noises with my lips, I wheeled myself back and forth. Scott was going through his phone. "Ah," he said as though he saw something he hadn't seen before. "I know someone who can bring it." He clicked something and brought the phone to his ear.

I quirked a brow at him and looked over, leaning over a bit to better examine his face. "Who?" Hm, did Scott really have a lot of friends other than me? It would be normal, but, so far as I knew he didn't have a big abundance of friends. There was me. There was his girlfriend. A few kids from the lacrosse team, but no one super close - not close enough to have easy access to his game stash. I wheeled a bit closer so I could hear the ringing on the other side. "Hmmm, Scott...?"

"Dude, get away from my face," Scott said brusquely, turning away and looking from side to side like he did whenever he didn't want to tell me something. Sighing, I leaned back in my wheelchair. My eyes squinted with skepticism.

"Ah, uh, hey." His voice became more proper all of a sudden, and I could see him straighten in his back. "Yeah, yeah. Uh, could you grab it? It's in the lower cabinet. Thanks." He hung up.

I blinked at him. "Who was...?" I didn't finish my sentence, trailing off instead.

Scott shook his head. "Nah it's not important, just a mutual friend."

Mutual friends can't just be mutual friends if they know you brought an empty Halo 4 case with you to the hospital. After a while, though, of us just kind of arguing about pointless shit and dicking around, footsteps resounded down the hall. It didn't seem like that big of a deal, but Scott stiffened visibly.

And then in the doorway without so much as a knock, there he was. Scott's "mutual friend." He was a big dude, broad in the shoulders, dressed in all black like he'd ridden here on a motorcycle. Cool dude. Tough dude. That sort of thing.

"Oh, hey," Scott said. His voice was weak.

The guy had wide cheekbones and a long nose, with dark brows and this really grim look on his face. He looked like he was studying us, without saying a word. His eyes were... gorgeous?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek leaves Scott and Stiles in the dust, but meanwhile Stiles' immune system isn't doing its job very well.

Yeah, I said it, or thought it, at least. His eyes were gorgeous. They looked hazel, but could have easily passed as green, or even blue. I had to stop myself from taking in every detail of his face, drinking it in with my eyes like just his presence was some nectar that only showed up every seven hundred years and I had better get my fix of it now. Staring at him had that desperate effect. He was amazing. I hated him instantly.

With an almost imperceptible movement, he flung a game case across the room. Scott flinched, throwing his hands up just in time to catch it. "Oh, thanks," he said, as though he were surprised his friend had even shown up. They shared some other brusque information, something about their mutual friend sending sentiments to Scott or whatever. Watching them interact was awkward. They weren't actually friends.

I didn't feel like I was in the room, I felt like a spectator on the other side of some screen, watching them speak to each other with this thick tensity hanging in the air. It was heavy and made me feel like I had to hold my breath. I only realized that I was actually in the room when Scott's friend looked at me.

He didn't say anything; he just looked at me. He studied me for a moment without moving his eyes away from mine. I felt like saying something remarkably witty or sarcastic, but nothing came to my mind. Even if something did, my mouth was sandpaper. His gaze lingered on mine long enough for me to see that he had little flecks of dark blue around the outer circumference of his irises, and wondering what he had determined about me in that span made me, admittedly, a little apprehensive.

He turned and left.

Right away, I craved that nectar again, the one that only shows up every seven hundred years.

But it was gone, and I wasn't really sure if I was ever going to see it again.

For answers, or maybe some kind of follow-up commentary, I looked to Scott, but he was already putting the game disc into the Xbox and turning it on. He threw a controller at me, and I caught it and wheeled myself around towards him. "Well alright, Scotty-boy, who was tall, dark, and cheekbones?" I added a light chuckle.

Scott just waved his hand dismissively at me as he signed into his gamer profile. I rolled my eyes and uttered the most obnoxious sigh I could muster. "Well?" I pressed. "Aren't you gonna give me at least a name? He's your friend, right?"

"Nah, it's not important," Scott shook his head. I've been friends with Scott ever since a Yu-Gi-Oh arm deck was the coolest thing a kid could have, but right about now he was starting to get on my nerves.

For the next forty minutes between rounds of me creaming Scott in one on one and vice versa, I continued to pester him with questions, not all of which were about his friend. At this point I was just bugging him. Scott was going to have to go home at some point soon, and I was about to ask him for just "one more round" before his mom knocked on the door and walked in.

"Hey, you," she greeted her son. "Pack your stuff, I've gotta talk to Stiles."

There was something in her voice I didn't like. It was so easy to pick out because there was never anything about Miss McCall I didn't like. But here, there was something that wasn't right. Her tone wasn't as chipper as it usually was, and she didn't have any sassy remark to greet Scott with, which was pretty strange in itself. Scott seemed to sense this too, and he gave me a glance before shutting off the Xbox and grabbing his backpack. He tossed our trash into the garbage can and then took his keys and went outside. I looked up at Miss McCall.

"Uh, is something wrong?" I asked. I tried to relax, but my heart was already speeding up.

"Not exactly," she said, making a face and gesturing with her hand, "but there's a lot that _could_ be wrong."

I stared at her. "And what does that mean?" I threw my hands up.

She huffed and leaned against the wall. "The lab work for your blood test came back. Your immune system is really weak right now."

"Well that was fast," I blinked, tipping my head back slightly in surprise.

"It wasn't exactly a tough find. Your system is pretty wide open to virus attacks and god knows what else."

"So what does that mean for me?"

"It means you have to stay here. And we need to start focusing on your health."

It didn't come as a surprise. I knew I wouldn't be able to just stay here until cold season was over and then hop on back home clean and fresh. It wasn't that easy. It was complicated. And it was also a pain in the ass. But it wasn't like I could do anything about it except sit here as useless as always. I'd gotten used to being paralyzed, how it felt, and wheeling myself around. Coming to terms with it completely was a different story. Paraplegia seemed so big, and I was so young. It felt strange to suddenly be so stagnant. All that had really changed about me was the fact that now, I sat in a chair with wheels. But sitting was passive, a stark contrast to how active I used to be.

Lacrosse would no longer be my thing. No sport would be my thing.

And in the winter when it gets cold and the flu starts going around again, would I always have to come back to the hospital for shots and blood tests?

Being paralyzed sucked on its own, but there's added risks that go along with it. Like a two-for-one deal of suck-assery. You could get pressure sores, which might be the grossest thing I had ever seen to-date, or thrombosis, which is like a fancy word for blood clots. Of course, susceptibility to illness comes along with that too. Inflammation. Phantom pains. Other nerve-related complications. Just a big basket of fun things.

Alright, time to get it together.

I sighed and nodded. "I get it."

She recognized the look of hey-I-need-to-be-alone in my face and backed out. I hoped to have a moment of peace or two to think about how much longer I'd have to be here, stationary, unmoving, stuck. Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to wallow in pity because Scott came back in, though he didn't pass through the doorway. I glared at him, though my gaze must've come off as more confused than anything else.

Scott waved his hand. "Sorry about Derek, by the way-"

"So his name's Derek?" I sounded a bit too eager. Damn it, Stilinski, tone it down there.

"Yeah, yeah, Derek," Scott leaned against the door frame. "I was just on the phone with him."

My heart jumped a little. Stop it, Stiles, you pathetic human being. "Oh, alright..." I hummed, trying my hardest to sound casual about the whole thing. I stretched my arms, scratching behind my head a little. "So uh, you told him about me then."

Scott shrugged. "Sure, I guess, I mean he knows you're the sheriff's son and you're my best friend but that's it."

Ah. Sheriff's son. Yep. Super cool kid alert.

 

A few more awkward words of parting and Scott was finally out the door and driving his mom back home. In an hour or two a nurse would come in to check if I had gotten into bed okay, because when you're paralyzed it takes all of your strength not to keel over and hurt yourself whenever you try and do anything - apparently.

But Derek happened. Derek with the hazel eyes that could almost pass as blue and the cheekbones and the presence of nectar that only showed up every seven hundred years. Derek whose last name I still did not know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer; i do not claim to know a lot about paraplegia.
> 
> also wow thanks so much to everyone for all the likes and kudos and stuuuuff
> 
> my updating might start to slow down after this chapter. also the tag for this fic on tumblr is just #starlight fanfic. ill be tagging it every time im getting ready to update.
> 
> thanks for reading ~


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a puzzle game, one sided self-disclosure, and a kiss.

The next day was tedious and bland.

Because there was nothing to do, it only would have made sense for me to remember to take my medicine, but when the other nurse showed up with it (she's new here), I just ended up kind of stuffing the pills into the trashcan. I spent most of the morning in bed, trying to transport myself back in time two years when my biggest worry was the lacrosse tryouts, and maybe getting the attention of the most popular girl in school. Two years ago the birds woke me. When they didn't, the alarm on my phone did, not nurses and medicine and blood tests. Sometimes I'd have to wear sweatpants to bed when it gold cold in the winter, but now it wasn't a problem.

A lot of times I would go to sleep in one position only to wake in a completely different position. Often, I'd end up tucking my knees up towards my chest in my sleep. Now, in the mornings, I found myself twisted, as though I tried to move during the night but my legs were less than compliant. It was uncomfortable to the point of it hurting, and all around my hips I'd get those tingles that mean part of you has fallen asleep. I didn't even have that luxury in my legs. I no longer got the little cues from the body to warn me that something wasn't right.

Being paraplegic was the absence of all those things. It made me feel so small. Sometimes I longed for the ache in my thighs and calves that developed a day or two after intense lacrosse practices and workouts. Or even the feeling of cold bathroom tile under my feet, not even good things. I missed the good feelings of leg massages, hot water, sunlight, sensation in general. But more than anything, I missed the bad things. The pain and soreness. Cramping and straining. And not the kind of hurt from phantom pains. I mean real pain. Not just pain that my brain makes a mistake about registering.

Pain was such a regular part of life, I'd never really thought about it until now. It's so normal, but we always antagonize it like it's a really bad politician and everything is its fault and we have to avoid it at all costs, but you can't because everybody somehow ends up voting for this asshole anyway. Pain isn't avoidable. You experience it and you keep going. If you just struggle over it, it turns into more than pain, it becomes suffering. And you can avoid that if you know how.

I must be a real hypocrite then, because here I was lamenting over the fact I can't feel shit in my legs.

Even when I did manage to sit up and open the blinds on my windows, I just kind of sat in bed with my iPod and listened to All Time Low. It wasn't until after Miss McCall showed up and yelled at me to get out of bed that I did end up hauling myself into my wheelchair and cleaning myself up a bit. Apparently if I just lied in bed all day I could end up with depression. I wasn't that kind of guy though. I was just gonna keep doing what I do. Make bad jokes. Play video games. Pick on Scott.

If I really did feel shitty, no one had to know. Besides, it was only on days like this that I ever _did_ feel shitty, because there's nothing to do and no one to remind you that you're normal and you're human and you're not just a pathetic waste of space.

I wasn't feeling the weird oatmeal slop breakfast, so I just downed the fruit cup that came along with it, sipped a bottle of milk, and turned on the Xbox. I'd already beat Halo 4's storyline, which was pretty interesting. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that most Halo games are pretty similar. While playing it, I couldn't help but wonder when we're gonna get super suits like that. They work with the nervous system and amplify all strengths. That would be pretty damn cool to have. Or even like something from that movie Avatar with the blue guys. That movie's got a paraplegic in it, though he's running around the jungle in a giant blue body the entire time. But I mean hey, given the opportunity, I would sure as hell switch myself out for a body that can walk.

Anyway, Scott was supposed to be coming around sometime soon to bring another game I could play, but he was already twenty minutes late. I would go and ask Miss McCall, but I wasn't sure she would even know. Plus, I didn't want to interrupt anything. So instead I kind of wheeled myself around and scrolled through Reddit a few times.

But then finally he showed up.

Only, it wasn't Scott.

It was Derek.

A nurse let him into my room, and he had a game case in one hand, a pair of Chevy keys in the other. I swear I was about to grin when I remembered that we hadn't spoken a word to each other and didn't know each other yet. But I felt like I knew him. Maybe it was just the refreshing relief of drinking that sweet nectar again, right when I thought it would be gone forever.

Instead I played it off. "Oh, uh, hey." Smooth, Stilinski.

"Stiles, right?" he asked. He wasn't looking at me, though. Hazel eyes were searching the room, drifting upon every corner as if every unfolded sheet, open cabinet, and bottle of medicine told little stories about me that he could figure out in his head. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

"Uh... yeah," I sounded breathless. My eyes found the game case again. "That from Scott?"

Derek looked over again. "Yeah, it is," he said, finally looking at me. "There's a lacrosse game tonight." Huh. That explained why Scott wasn't showing up. I figured he wouldn't be around tonight either. If I got better soon, I'd genuinely like to go see a game. Who knew when "better" would be, though. Derek walked over to the Xbox and opened the case, crouching there and popping the game in.

I thought about stopping him to reassure him I am perfectly capable of putting a game into an Xbox on my own, like I did often with the nurses. Except not about games and Xboxes. Brushing my teeth, getting into bed, getting dressed. Stuff like that, they always wanted to help. I appreciated idle favors, but there were some things I could just accomplish on my own, even if it took a while to do it. This, though, I didn't stop this. For some reason, I just let him be. "Derek, right?" I asked. My heart was pumping again. His name tasted sweet on my tongue.

"Mmhm," he hummed in reply. "Derek Hale." His voice was low, but not a whisper.

I leaned over curiously as the Xbox turned on. "What's that? Better not be Minecraft," I jested, grinning a little.

A husk of a laugh muffled from Derek's throat, causing my heart to skip a beat or two. "Nah, it's called Limbo," he explained, handing me a controller.

"How do you play?"

The home screen of the game came on. It was all black, which made me apprehensive since thus far it looked like an indie horror game. Big, blocky white letters read "LIMBO" across the screen, which also suggested me to press any button to continue. When I did, the game took me to a side-scroller setting. It was dark, the entire foreground made of a dark, black ground with tufts of equally-black grass peeking up. The trees were tall and menacing, and everything in the background looked blurry with mist. It all seemed inked into the screen, only blacks and grays. A little kid rose up from the ground though, blinking these glowing white eyes. Now it really did seem like an indie horror game.

It was quiet, though, and I liked that. Immediately, I began running my little character through the grass towards a tree, only to have a gigantic black spider emerge and stab him through the chest.

"Oh," was all I could say.

"There are traps," Derek said to me when I reappeared. He pointed to these jagged shapes along the bottom of the screen. "You pull them to where the spider's leg hits the ground so you trap him."

"I still don't get this game," I huffed, a little aggravated when I stepped straight into the bear trap instead of dragging it across the screen.

"He's in Limbo."

I wasn't sure if Derek was just being clever, or if there were meaning behind those words. In Dante's _Inferno_ , Limbo was the level of Hell were unbaptized souls were to live out eternity without God's love. At least that's how Dante figured it. But by definition, limbo was just a waiting period. You can't do anything but wait, whether it's in a giant spider-infested inky land or in a wheelchair at the hospital. "Yeah, no kidding," I said back.

"Those are a lot." I had to look over to see what Derek was talking about. He was staring at a line of orange capsules of pills laid out on the sink's counter. I shrugged in response.

"Sure, I guess. It's cold season. It's why I'm here. If I get sick and inflamed in the spine or whatever, I'm kind of done for," a dark turn was taken pretty quick. In better news, I finally trapped the spider's leg in the game. "Just a side effect of being paralyzed, as if it wasn't bad enough." I chuckled, but it was at myself, like I was just making fun of myself for the fact that I was here with motionless legs. "It's just worse when no one's around," I added. Geez, now I was starting to sound really pitiful.

"Makes sense," Derek mused thoughtfully, walking over to the window and peering through the opened blinds. A jingle of his keys in his hand signaled to me he was about to leave.

"Tell Scott I say hey," I said, eyes fixed on the screen. I didn't want to look at Derek. I didn't want to see him leave. If I turned and looked at him now, I would want to ask him not to go, and that would just make me all the more pathetic.

Derek's shoes sounded against the hospital room's floors, but before I knew what was happening, he was there beside me. I knew he was leaving, but before he did, he leaned down to me.

And he kissed my forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LIMBO's a fun game. you should play it.
> 
> great to bust out another chapter this spring break !! its gonna start picking up from here story-wise, im hoping.
> 
> thanks for reading !


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek aggravates Stiles, who may or may not be pretty gay now, but either way, one of them is saving the other.

What.

_What._

_What????????_

Okay, first of all, why kiss someone you barely even know without even saying anything and second of all, why leave afterwards also without saying anything? I was pissed off. My head was full of question marks. Why did he leave? Why did he kiss me? Who the hell was Derek Hale anyway? He was dark and broody, but I didn't know anything else about him (other than that he could kill a man with his cheekbones).

For a long time I sat without moving, not even looking at the game flickering on the screen. I just stared down, looking at the controller in my lap, and my hands laying loosely over it. I could remember his smell, from when he had leaned in close to me. Derek Hale smelled like a new car, something black, with leather seats. Oh, God, why was I already thinking about him? Was he gay? He kissed me, so that made him gay. Did that make me gay too? Were we gay together?

_Stiles, what the fuck?_

In loud aggravation, I gave a shout and tossed the Xbox controller behind myself. I heard it land on the bed, but it bounced off to no surprise because that thing's got like four hundred springs that dig into your back if you sleep in a certain position. The controller clattered onto the floor and, contemplating the amount of effort I'd have to use to wheel myself over there and pick it up, I groaned loudly, tipping my head back. Damn you, Derek Hale, for making me question my sexuality. I mean, I'd considered myself bi for a while, but still only hit on girls - notice I don't say date because god bless me if I had ever gotten the nerve to ask a girl out. Some guys were attractive though. I'd never thought of dating one, but yeah, why not. Derek was a whole different level, though. Maybe I was just moving up the scale of homo. Did that make sense?

"Nothing makes sense anymore!" I finished out loud in spite of myself, huffing and throwing my arms up in embarrassment. With another huff and a groan, I slapped my hands over my face, dragging my eyelids down.

As if on cue to potentially make everything more awkward on an infinite scale, Miss McCall leaned into my doorway. She quirked a brow at me, her curly tresses spilling over her shoulder as she tilted her head. "Everything okay, Stiles?" her eyes laughed as she looked at the screen. "Getting upset at a game again?" A smile tugged on the corner of her lips.

"Uh," I looked over at her, "yeah."

She shrugged. "Try not to think too much about it," she said, walking over and picking up the controller on the ground before handing it to me and walking out with another smile.

"Right..." I whispered to myself. "Try not to think too much about it."

Made sense. With a long sigh, I let it go.

I played the game a little, but died a whole lot, so I decided to call Scott. When he picked up, there was a lot of extra background noise. He was probably at lunch. "Yo, Scotty, whassup," I said, alternating in a few different accents.

"What's up, Stiles?" he asked in all teenage-boy plainness that was Scott McCall.

"So uh, who exactly is Derek?"

A sigh from the other side. "Stiles, I thought I told you not to worry about it."

"He came and dropped off that game today. I just want to know what he does," I tried to sound as casual as possible.

"Listen, it's not important."

"He's not a drug dealer, is he?"

"What?" Scott hissed. "No, Stiles, nothing like that."

"Well then what does he do? Does he just sit at home all day, or what?" Ironic, considering all I was doing lately was sitting. In a hospital. All day.

"No, he's usually out and about," Scott explained. He was about to say something else when I cut him off.

"Dealing drugs?"

"Ugh," Scott huffed. "No, Stiles. I don't know what he does he's just around, okay? I don't know what to tell you, he's just... Derek."

"Gatsby...?" I said softly with an air of confusion and mystique as I quoted a great book from ninth grade English class. "What Gatsby?"

Scott chuckled. "C'mon Stiles," I could hear him smile. "Go around the hospital and do something. Ride the elevator to every floor or something." We'd done it before.

"Does he watch movies?"

"What?"

"What? Nothing. Stay crazy, Scott McCall," I hung up with a click.

Wherever Derek was, I wanted to see him.

I spent the rest of the day wheeling myself around the hospital under a multitude of nurses' careful watch. It was nice to feel the sun on my skin, and I actually ate a full meal. For a while during the afternoon I followed Miss McCall around, messing with her papers and stethoscope and asking her tons of questions. Mostly questions about my condition and the dangers it came with. What kinds of medicine I need to strengthen my immune system. Other stuff like that.

"Why are you so interested all of a sudden?" she asked, scribbling some stuff down onto a sheet of paper on her desk. She looked over at me.

"Oh, I dunno," I said, not looking up from the paper I was skimming over. I didn't want to have to lie to her, but I wasn't sure how much she knew. I just... wanted to be able to see Derek. Outside of the hospital. Maybe I could actually be more than just a mutual friend if I wasn't always stuck by a hospital bed taking (or neglecting to take) five different medicines every day. I wanted to be well enough to be someone who could hang out with him, who could be with him.

That night, much to my own surprise, I took all of my medicine without so much as an eyeroll, and I let the other nurse come in and give me a shot. Perhaps this whole thing was easier than I thought it was. Perhaps all it took to get me better and taking this seriously was a tall guy in a leather jacket. I don't know, maybe I was just searching for meaning in things when it wasn't there. But at this point, it looked to me like Derek Hale might be saving my life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stiles is frustrated and throws stuff ??? eh this chapter's kind of short but i tried.
> 
> oh my gosh ohmygosh the amount of support from the teen wolf fandom is much more than i thought, you guys are fast! thanks so much for all the kudos and hits, would love to see some comments
> 
> again thanks so much for reading !
> 
> reminder that on tumblr #starlight fanfic is a thing


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' not-so-busy week suddenly becomes very busy with MRI scans and phone numbers.

It was hard for me the next few days.

I stopped wanting to take my medicine. I stopped wanting to eat full meals. I stopped wanting to open the blinds of my windows or even play video games. I stopped wanting to get out of bed. But... I did. I took my medicine and ate meals and heaved myself out of bed. But Derek didn't come for the rest of that week. It had been - how long, now? Four days? Five? I sat around by the window a lot thinking about why he didn't return. Maybe my forehead was sweaty, maybe my hair smelled.

After a while, though, I realized if I had just kissed somebody out of the blue, I would be pretty nervous about going back to see them ever. Then again, it was hard for me to imagine Derek Hale being nervous. I did it anyway.

I chuckled to myself thinking of those magnificent cheekbones with any semblance of pink blush. Derek seemed the kind of person who, when embarrassed, his brow would wrinkle and he would shove his lips into a frown and look off to the side to avoid eye contact. Trying to imagine him stuttering or stumbling over his words or even just being grumpy in general made me want to tease the hell out of him.

These were the only thoughts that could preoccupy me since the kiss.

Scott must've procrastinated all he could until real life caught up with him. He hadn't been around because of homework, crazy teachers, and school in general. School seemed like a privilege of an inconvenience to me. Me, who would never be able to sit in a school desk anyway because I could only sit in chairs with wheels.

I mean, I hated wishing I was normal again. I would never walk, okay, it took me a while but I got that in my head. I had - more or less - come to terms with it. Sort of. That kind of thing is so difficult to accept when you're constantly reminded of it. Sorry people holding the elevator door for me with sad eyes, nurses losing a a sigh when I insist on dragging myself out of bed, I didn't want it. Hell, I wanted them to disappear. Scott and Miss McCall were the only people who didn't constantly act like they felt bad for me. And then... of course, there was Derek.

I couldn't stop thinking about him, for one. I couldn't really classify him either since I'd barely even spoken to him.

But I really wanted him to be _that_ person. The one who doesn't pity me. The one who doesn't care. The one who can take the pain away. Instantly, I realized I was fantasizing and shut myself up.

"Stop it, Stilinski," I hissed as I organized my desk to busy myself. "Derek Hale is a human being and you are an asshole."

It wasn't up to me to tell him who to be.

I decided to check the clock and noticed that the afternoon was chugging along and I was still sitting here. Usually, I'd have a number of checkups right about now. For whatever reason the frequency of examinations had gone up within the past few days. Part of me knew something was wrong, but I really, really didn't want to think about it so I ignored it in the hopes that maybe it would be nothing. Five or ten minutes later, though, Miss McCall walked in, knocking on my door before opening it. She didn't look her usual perky self. Not that she looked upset, but just a little worn down. Couldn't blame her; the woman worked ridiculous hours to provide for Scott. Thankfully, I was an easy patient for her to deal with.

"Hey, Stiles," she said, clutching her clipboard to her chest. As she walked further into the room, I saw another doctor beside her. He was standing a little outside my room; I didn't recognize him. Unknowingly, my stare turned cold as I continued to size him up. Miss McCall cleared her throat a little to bring my attention back to her. "I'm sorry this is so short-notice," she continued.

I shook my head and shrugged. "Nah, it's fine. What's up?"

"Well," she huffed, "it looks like we're gonna have to do an MRI scan. That sound okay?"

It didn't sound okay, but I nodded. I had a number of MRI scans right after the accident when they were assessing my condition, but no scans since then. Anxiety felt like a soup inside of me, something that you kind of stick a lid on and set over the burner. But you know, you accidentally leave the burner on and it's going and going and then the pot's so hot it bubbles and starts to rattle the lid. I didn't realize I was shaking until I began to wheel myself down the hall after Miss McCall and the other doctor. This guy was joined by another nurse, and I began shaking so hard I could barely keep up.

It was just my hands, but Miss McCall must've noticed because she came up behind me and began pushing my wheelchair for me. She hushed me when I tried to protest, so I just let her. The hallway seemed so familiar, but in a type of deja vu, as though I had seen it before in a dream. Just thinking about it, I could hear sirens and see the flashing lights and smell plastic and cleaning detergent.

I would never forget the night my mother died.

Or at least, they said she died. When they hauled her from the wreckage of our car, I don't think they were sure - she might even have still been breathing. Critical condition or something. They weren't able to save her, though. I remember looking at pictures of what was left of our car. It was like a tin can that got crushed or smashed or went through the garbage disposal. Sheets of metal were peeled back. The entire front was totaled. It was hardly even recognizable. I never saw my mom though. At least, not until her funeral.

The MRI rooms were further down that same hallway where she had - I guessed - passed away. It was so abrupt. My dad never got to say anything to her before she and I got in the car, but... I mean, I hadn't said anything to her either. There were so many things I wanted to say. It's like that boiling pot again. It gets so hot after a time that if you go to turn off the stove or take it off the burner you risk getting burned.

I'm not sure I was willing to take that risk.

When we got into the MRI room, I was a little more stable. Faintly, I wondered what I had looked like in this same room years ago. Smaller, sure. Hair shorter, of course. Younger. Innocent. What have you. Still in the damn chair. Still scared. Not much had really changed, had it?

The nurse and Miss McCall helped lift me into it, and injected something into my arm. Being stuck in a wheelchair was something that held me back enough, but the MRI machine was another level of discomfort. A low-level claustrophobia kicked in when the machine whirled to life and began sliding me into the actual thing itself. It was so enclosed; my pace rapidly sped up, and it felt like my chest was tightening, like I might not be able to get enough air into my lungs. My teeth found the inside of my lip and began chewing incessantly. It hurt a little, but I just wanted to distract myself from staring up at the blank whiteness of the inside of the machine.

It was damn loud in there too - louder than I remember it being. Like a train was going over me. I couldn't help but wince, my head fraying at the sound. It buzzed and crunched, and it seemed to go on forever. Before I could even realize it, sweat had collected at my brow and began to run down the side of my forehead. The MRI stopped every few minutes, and then started up again; another round of hell.

I was in the machine for an hour and fifteen minutes.

My skin was pale when I came out. Miss McCall rushed to me, but it only wigged me out more. I remember my hands going numb with that tingling sensation as though they'd fallen asleep. I couldn't really move at all at that point, so Miss McCall and the other nurse helped me into my wheelchair. They exchanged some words that I was too dazed to pick up, and then Miss McCall rushed me out of the room and down the hallway. When we got to the elevator, I was already slipping into something of a light sleep. She nudged me and I opened my eyes, lids fluttering. She was knelt down beside me.

"Do you want some ice cream?" she asked me, offering her best smile.

Closing my eyes again, I nodded.

 

\--

 

I have never shoveled hospital-quality mint chocolate ice cream into my mouth with so much fervor before. Miss McCall called it stress-eating or something, but all I knew was that I was tired and hungry and the ice cream was suddenly really really good. I was scraping out the bottom of my cup when the second wave of exhaustion hit me.

"You should probably go to bed," Miss McCall offered, noticing.

I looked up. "What time is it?" I asked as I licked the spoon. She checked her watch.

"About six thirty."

With a huff I leaned back in my wheelchair. It was early, but I was so exhausted. If I went to bed now, it wouldn't be a nap; I was sure I would end up sleeping all the way through the night and into the morning as well. Of course, I agreed to go to bed anyway. I needed the rest, I figured, and the doctors wouldn't get my MRI results back for at least twelve hours.

The sun was setting when Miss McCall wheeled me down the hallway from the elevator. Outside, the sky was fading from blues to pinks and orange. The rosy sun had begun its descent, to be swallowed by the lights of the city. I watched the cars on the distant highway, slowly becoming more and more sleepy as I watched the flow of their traffic. Though half-assedly, I managed to crawl into bed, and fell asleep instantly. It didn't last long, because I woke with the click of my door. I opened my eyes, and recognized Miss McCall in the dark, about to slip from my room. At my desk, there was an envelope. Still groggy with sleep, I was only able to give her a really confused stare.

"Somebody left that with the receptionist," Miss McCall whispered in a hushed tone. "It's for you."

With that, she slipped out the door and closed it behind her. And, too tired to care, I went back to sleep.

 

\--

I had forgotten about the late-night envelope when I woke up, so I went about getting up and out of bed and dressed like I always did. After brushing my teeth, however, I saw the little paper slip out of the corner of my eye, and at once remembered everything. I wheeled myself over to my desk a little too hastily, wondering why the hell somebody left me a letter and did people even leave letters anymore?

It ripped open with a shriiiip, and I pulled out a tiny piece of paper reminiscent of a post-it note. On it were ten numbers. Confused, I turned the envelope over again. Scrawled in black ink, two words read " _Derek Hale_."

I added him to my phone in seconds.

We talked, though, for days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> half a thousand hits whaaaat  
> you guys are crazy.  
> sorry this took me so long life is getting busy, but i'll try to write chapters more frequently.  
> thanks so much for sticking around !


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles gets out and about, Scott has second thoughts, and Derek is only concerned about one thing.

Derek Hale wasn't a hard guy to crack. He put up all these walls, or so I guessed, making it seem like he was a tough guy. Not that he wasn't.

It would be hard for anyone to believe he had any personality if they didn't have a certain mindset when talking to him. For me, it was pretty easy to figure out. He ignored and/or brushed off most things that weren't important to him, so the trick of it was to be a little invasive and a little annoying but only to a certain degree. As much as I never wanted to admit it, my personality was always kind of in that spectrum, and Derek's tough-guy attitude just naturally egged me on more. He ended up being not a total bore to talk to.

Relieved, I ended up talking to him about... pretty much everything. From life in a whitewashed hospital room to the fact that there are only about three shapes of McDonald's chicken nuggets, which turned out to be a great conversation. I was satisfied to find that Derek always had something to say. Maybe nothing more than a sound of acknowledgement or a sentence or two, but he never flat-out ignored something or switched topics. I knew it wasn't because he was bored, he just honestly seemed to be interested in listening to me. Every so often he would say something brusque, but simultaneously a remark that made it obvious he had been paying attention.

Derek didn't use many words, but he picked them carefully. On the outside, he seemed really apathetic, but after a while of talking to him, I figured out that you can tell what he's thinking based on which words he uses. Okay, maybe I was reading a little too much into it.

What could I say? Derek Hale had managed to capture all of my undivided attention and interest.

My usually ADHD-mind was so focused on him throughout the whole morning. I spent the wee hours of the morning talking to Derek and getting more personal than I probably should have; the expedition left its mark in the form of dark circles that followed the contours of my sockets. I was wide awake though, and frankly, hyped on coffee. I had even forgotten about my morning assessment.

"Stiles?" It was Miss McCall knocking on my door.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold on, hold on- I was just- you know I didn't get a lot of sleep, I... I was kept up by some thinking, and-" I didn't finish a single sentence I started. I was preoccupied with rushing to rearrange my messy bed and trying to wheel myself over to the bathroom to clean up a little.

"You can preen later, Stiles," Miss McCall laughed, a warm smile tugging on her lips. She shook her head a little. "Did you forget about the assessment?"

Huffing a sigh, I pushed myself off the bathroom door and wheeled backwards into my room. "Okay, maybe I forgot about the assessment." She gave me a look. "It doesn't matter!"

"Aren't you excited?" she lifted a brow. "If you're looking better, you could actually go out today."

I didn't understand how just the other day I was getting scanned in a radioactive tin can of death, and today I could be getting cleared to be out for the day. But that was paraplegia for you. From what I knew and from what Miss McCall had told me in the past, it can be an unpredictable thing - hard to examine closely, even. Which didn't make me feel any more comfortable, but at this point I've learned to deal with it.

The assessment Miss McCall wheeled me too was standard as far as assessments go. They'd gotten back some blood tests and the scans from the other day, and concluded by looking over a number of routine check-ups. The main doctor who I'd seen a number of times in the past but never cared about enough to establish any sort of relationship with seemed kind of surprised that I was doing okay. I mean, maybe it was Derek, maybe it was the medicine, but I sure felt okay. The guy dismissed me after a while of talking with Miss McCall, who over the course of the year I'd been in and out at the hospital, had become something of a surrogate mother figure around the hospital. Technically, no one patient gets assigned a one nurse, but Miss McCall always made sure she would be the one helping me out.

"So... you're cleared to do whatever, really," she said, walking beside me with her hands in the pockets of her scrubs.

I was pushing myself along excitedly. Things were pretty good from my spot on cloud, like, ten. I nodded briskly. "Booyeah," I grinned, looking straight forward as we headed back towards my hall.

"You gonna go out?" she asked.

I nodded with a sound of agreement.

"Alright," she said, opening the door for me, "I'll let Scott know you're available."

She left me alone from there, and I spent a number of minutes tidying up. I changed into a shirt and a red hoodie I'd had for a while, then cleaned up a bit before wheeling myself back out towards the lobby.

The first person I saw there was my dad. Seeing him gave me a very finite sense of bittersweet pity. The guy had enough problems as it was; he was a sheriff, and worked so hard. My condition never made anything easier for us, but he'd be damned before he said anything like that to me. He always kept pushing on. I could tell he was tired even from a distance. He, too, had dark circles of skin surrounding dark eyes. He looked a little older, like he had somehow aged faster during the time I'd been staying at the hospital. He visited often, I mean, but sometimes he just got wrapped up in work. I didn't blame him; there were no hard feelings.

We had a lopsided embrace.

My dad and I kept up some small talk, throwing in a few jokes here and there.

"Ah, yeah, I'm actually going to be hanging out with Scott most of the day," I ended up telling him. We made a deal to meet for dinner somewhere.

When I went out to the parking lot, I was shocked to feel how cold it had gotten, and instantly regretted not bringing gloves or a scarf or a hat. I had a bad habit of forgetting the world once I went through the hospital doors. It was like... you want the world to stop and wait for you while you're in there. You want to put everything on pause, get your business done, get better, and get out and hit resume. But it doesn't work like that. The months and seasons move on without you. It was always a hard thing for me to think about for some reason. I huffed into my hands, rubbing them before wheeling myself out towards Scott's car. Miss McCall got a ramp for their car recently so I could actually be in it. Pretty awesome, actually.

"Look who's out and about," Scott smiled. He looked happy to see me.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go get pancakes."

He waited for me to get into the seat before helping fold up my wheelchair and sticking it in the back seat. He put the ramp up and moved around the car, hopping behind the wheel as I shut my door. It didn't take us long to get to our destination: iHop. AKA better-than-waffle-house. We went through the routine of unfolding my wheelchair and I got into it and out of the car with little struggle. You get used to hauling yourself around using your arm and shoulder muscles after a while. The hardest part is getting your legs to cooperate.

We got seated at a table, and I couldn't help but feel a little bitter. It was a little thing, but I fuckin' missed sitting in those damn booths. It's always the little things, you know?

Scott ordered a water like some kind of adult, but I asked for a chocolate milk because the hospital milk cartons were worse than the ones you get at school (who knew that was possible).

"So guess who's making friends?" I asked him with a smile.

Scott raised a brow the same way his mother did.

I wiggled a little in my seat. "Me," I threw my hands up. "Me; I'm making friends, Scott. That's a good thing, don't look so skeptical. I'm social, right?"

Scott shook his head with a sigh. "No, that's not what I'm..." he trailed off.

I shrugged, popping my lips together and looking through the menu. "You're friend ah, Derek," I started, "we've been talking you know." Instantly, I knew I shouldn't have said anything.

Scott drew in a breath. I looked up and could see a tightness weaving itself into his shoulders. He sighed. "Listen, Stiles, I don't know about Derek, he's not really-"

"What? Isn't he your friend?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that, but you know..."

"No, I don't know, Scott. He seems fine to me," I shrugged, tapping my fingers on the menu. "We're gonna hang out today."

"Stiles, that's not a good idea."

I was about to rally back with full force when the waitress came back to our table.

 

\--

 

Now that I was 50% pancake and 50% frustration, it seemed like a good time to check my texts. Scott had gotten up to go the bathroom, so I pulled my phone from my pocket and was pleasantly surprised to see a text from Derek.

_Did that new Spiderman movie come out?_

My brow furrowed in thought for a moment. _yeah, why ??_ I texted him back swiftly.

There was an ellipsis on the screen for a second.

_Do you want to go see it?_

I couldn't help but smile, but I was a little confused. Derek did not seem like a very Spiderman-guy. He was more like... 300. Or horror films. Which was cool with me, but man I wanted to see that Spiderman movie. I'd been seeing commercials at the hospital all week long.

_yesssss !! :O_ I answered.

_Alright, I'll pick you up._

I blinked. _im at ihop with scott ?_

_Okay, I'll pick you up there._

I was excited. Holy shit, I was excited. Aaand then there was Scott, who was friends but apparently not friends with Derek? He returned to the table right on cue.

"Alright, do you want to do anything else while we're out?" he asked. "I can't imagine you want to go back to the hospital."

I made a face of pain, but it was more like bracing for what was about to come. "Uhhhh DerekandIaregoingtoseeSpiderman."

Scott was silent for a moment. He stood there, frozen, before groaning. "Stiles, _I_ wanted to see that movie," he pointed to himself with his thumb.

"I know, I know! Listen, Derek and I aren't like best friends or anything don't worry nobody is replacing you, Scott McCall."

He rolled his eyes at me. "No, you're just boyfriends."

For a moment my heart dropped, and felt like it was then shot back up into my throat. No, he couldn't possibly know. I scoffed. "I'm not gay." What a goddamn liar. Scott just looked at me. "What? Going to a movie with an attractive person who happens to be a man does not make me gay."

"So you admit he's attractive?" Scott raised his eyebrows at me.

"Wha- that doesn't matter!" I made a series of wide movements with my hands in rapid succession which probably confused everyone else in the restaurant. "Okay, I'm going outside before you make a scene." I hurriedly began wheeling myself to the door.

Scott laughed behind me. "You're the one making a scene."

When we got outside, I was harshly reminded of exactly how cold it was outside now. I rubbed my hands together, checking my phone for any new texts, which I did not have.

"Listen," Scott sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Derek isn't the kind of guy you go to a movie with."

"So... he's the kind of guy you do what with, help murder someone?"

Scott shrugged, looking around.

It took me like, .2 seconds to shoot him a bitch-face. "Okay, no, Scott. I'm just gonna go watch this movie, and then I'm gonna go home. Sound good?"

"Alright, alright..." Scott huffed, running his fingers through his hair. "Is he coming here?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"I'm gonna go now... okay?"

"Yeah...?"

"Alright... I'm leaving! Bye!"

We both broke into laugher. "Get out of here, Scott McCall," I snorted.

As soon as Scott began to walk away, there was a screech of sudden brakes as an impressively masculine Camaro pulled up to the curb. It was all black, sunlight playing off the angular shape of the car in such a way it made it obvious that the thing had just been freshly waxed. And in it? Of course, Derek Hale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scott: stiles dont go with derek  
> stiles: *goes with derek*
> 
> this chapter is long as hecke and i wrote most of it while a cat was sitting on my belly


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pizza, Harry Potter Scene It, and existentialism.

"Y'know, ah, Derek..." I tried to get his attention, but he didn't seem to be listening. Instead, he'd gotten out of his shiny car and opened the trunk. I couldn't tell his expression through his sunglasses, so I just cleared my throat again. "In case you can't tell, I kind of need a ramp to get anywhere. Sucks, I know, but-"

"It's not a big deal." Derek's reply was utterly lackluster. He opened the passenger door and came moving towards me.

"Wait, what, I- hey, what the hell-?!" I couldn't stop him due to my obvious lack of mobility; he scooped an arm underneath my legs and his other hand was firmly pressed against my back. He had about zero trouble lifting me up, causing a sound of shock to unravel from my throat. I promised myself I wouldn't do anything stupid or embarrassing, yet here I was. Derek carried me with ease into the car, placing me in the passenger seat. I watched as he turned to my wheelchair. "Hey, ah, if you need help or something..."

"I know how to do it," he said with some reassurance, folding the thing up within moments. I was honestly impressed. When did he...? He must've figured my confusion. "I looked it up the other day."

He turned away quickly. After a moment, I heard the trunk slam shut and Derek returned to the driver's seat. I was still a little dumbfounded. He had taken the time to look up how to fold my wheelchair, at a time that I guessed to be before he even asked me to go to the movie. Maybe to anyone else it would have just been "the polite thing to do" or whatever, but for someone who doesn't really get out much anyway, it felt... special, almost, that he would do that. Better yet, he didn't seem to have thought about it much. Let me tell you now, there is nothing worse than someone who makes you feel guilty for being handicapped.

Like, gee, sorry a car crash rendered me unable to move or feel my legs? Somehow, it had become natural for me to feel as though I was an inconvenience.

Either way, I snapped back to the moment and shut my door.

The car ride was a little quiet, but I had to keep reminding myself that technically, Derek and I barely knew each other. I turned thoughts over a million times in my head, thinking that maybe this wasn't a good idea, or I should probably start talking or goddamnit Stilinski, why for once in your life do you not have something clever to say? In the throes of silent angst, I ended up switching the radio station every ten seconds. When I began to think Derek was getting annoyed, I was thrown off to hear him laugh a little under his breath. It wasn't really a substantial laugh, just the kind of thing you do when you read something funny and blow air out of your nose really fast.

"How about this..." he offered quietly, not moving his eyes from the road to adjust the radio to some XM station. It was actually playing music, which was more than I could say about the other channels.

I raised my brows a little. "Ah, that works." It began to grow awkward quickly, so I filled the space by doing what was obviously the best idea I could come up with; I started mimicking the sound of the engine of Derek's car.

At first he didn't seem to notice, but I kept it up just to see how long it would take him.

"What are you doing?" he asked after a while, intense brow furrowed.

I smirked. "I dunno, what are you doing?"

"I'm driving," he replied brusquely.

"Hey me too!" I retorted. The sad truth was mimicking car sounds was probably the closest I would get to driving since I can't move my feet.

Derek didn't say anything, but I looked over and could see him suppressing a smile; lest to say he was, in the very least, mildly amused. Just the look of Derek trying to keep serious caused me to snort a bit. I was on the verge of smiling stupidly at him when we stopped suddenly.

I looked back and forth. "Why did you stop?"

He took his sunglasses off. "We're here."

Oh. Right.

Somehow, Derek was able to smoothly remove my folded wheelchair from the trunk of the Camaro. Moving vehicles, getting around the hospital, getting out of bed, even; I've seen people fumble with my chair plenty times before, watching it happen over and over. Occasionally, with a newer nurse, I'd have to help her. My chair was a bit outdated, so it wasn't as convenient as the new wheelchairs. It was heavy, and pretty cumbersome to unfold and open up. Derek, though, didn't seem to have much trouble with it. He faltered a bit when he realized it was upside down but readjusted it and wheeled it over to the passenger side.

He held his hand out, and I didn't feel like a burden for taking it.

 

\--

 

The theatre had been pretty packed, but we only needed to look for one empty seat because I mean - I brought my own. Kind of.

I wasn't really sure if Derek had been actually paying attention to the movie at all. He'd turned his phone's brightness down all the way and continuously texted or checked the time. He did watch some of it, though. As we left, I kept talking to him about the ending, waiting for him to say something about it, but instead he just looked at me, waiting for me to keep talking.

"So?" he finally said, holding the theatre door open for me.

"So what?" I squinted into the sunlight, now fading.

Derek uttered a chuckle, following me out. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. " _So_ , did you like it?"

"Well yeah," I said, as though it should be obvious, adding a shrug.

Derek pulled out his sunglasses and put them back on. "Well then... that's all that matters."

Part of me immediately felt like punching him in the face for saying something so completely, utterly _adorable_ , but I realized that I would have trouble reaching him at his height and my lack of mobility. Plus, I was blushing, and was very thankful for the sunlight on my face to somewhat hide the evidence of my embarrassment. That's like, sometimes he would text me something that seemed really ordinary, but it would just be one of those little things that don't get said enough. And so it would usually make me want to chuck my phone across the room at the wall.

Make no mistake, Derek Hale was not an overly romantic person. But, everything he said to me felt like it mattered.

 

\--

 

Since the movies, we started hanging out in person more often, especially since the frequency of my scans and blood tests had gone done dramatically within those weeks. I don't know if I would ever call us a couple in those moments. It was obvious there was something, but were Derek and I... dating...? I was never sure. But we shared some kind of strange relaxation; a comfort between us where we wouldn't have to really say much or talk about much.

We went out to a number of places, none of which were your conventional "date-worthy" environments. The coffee shop, we visited often. Not just one; there were a few in the area and we made something of a game of visiting all of them. I would try anything remotely frothy or creamy or sweet, but Derek took his coffee - surprise! - black. Most of the time he would get a tiny cup, just a shot of espresso, but it would look so out of place in his hands, like he would have to be careful not to crush it.

We went to sit-down breakfast places at five o'clock in the afternoon _and_ ordered from the breakfast menu. And we went to this little downtown bookstore and bought snacks from the bar, and then sat at a table away from the others and proposed life stories about people who walked by.

Derek and I managed to get close unusually quick. It took about a week or two until I asked him if he wanted to start visiting the hospital on down days. I mean, there were days when the both of us weren't really up to going anywhere or doing anything, or days when my back would start to ache a lot my medicine made me too drowsy to be up and around. It didn't mean I didn't want to see him on those days, though.

"Hey..." I told him on the phone one day, "How would you feel about coming over to the hospital?"

Derek provided a second of silence. "I'm fine with it, but is your back okay?"

I smirked. "Yeah, yeah, my back is fine, I got a, uh..." I took a moment, pulling out the microwave hot-pad from behind me and reading the label. "I got my Bed Buddy hot pack with me."

I could almost hear Derek rolling his eyes. "Well okay, I'll be over in about ten or twenty minutes. Do you want me to pick up a pizza on the way?" Ah, yes, the path to my heart.

Checking the time, I saw it was about 5 pm. But you can eat pizza at any time. "Sounds like a plan, big man. Oh! And guess what Scott dropped off earlier?"

"What?"

"Harry Potter Scene It."

"Stiles, if you make me play that game..."

"I'm making you play the game byeee!" I hung up with a click.

I could smell the pizza before he was even in the hallway. Already, I had the TV running and had pulled the game board onto the bed. Derek showed up with a knock on the door before he came in.

"Yay!" I cheered, clapping and wheeling myself around to see him. "I would give you a standing ovation," I assured him.

With a smirk, Derek put the pizza box on the counter, which was parallel to my bed. He had figured out early on that I had a knack for making fun of myself, or constantly pointing out the things I couldn't do anymore. We had fought about it a bit at first, actually. Out of all of the things that boiled his pot or whatever, hearing me make self-depreciating comments was in the top three. Maybe if I were a more fragile human being, I would have figured it was because saying those things were annoying. But it always put an edge to Derek, the kind I know was caused only because he cared about me. And I trusted him. So my bad attitude towards my disability had recently become nothing more than a bad habit. I tried to let him know I didn't ever think much about it, it just came out - but he still wasn't a fan. Kind of cute, actually.

"Okay," Derek huffed, plopping down into a chair. "How do I play this shit?"

"Slow down, crazy," I shot him a look, opening up the pizza box and taking in a deep whiff. I released a guttural noise of pleasure. "God is real!" I groaned loudly, picking up a slice and devouring half of it in one bite. When I looked over, Derek seemed to be reading over the instructions, so I kept eating until I finished the slice. Which wasn't very long, tell you what.

I didn't tell him when I was finished. I kept watching as he read over the instructions until he finally felt my gaze and looked up with his brows raised. His blue eyes swirled with confusion. My lungs emptied a sigh.

"What?" he asked, brow furrowing.

My gaze moved down to the floor and I shrugged. "Nothing, I just... I don't know why I thought about this just now..."

"Stiles, what?" I could hear Derek straighten up.

I looked back up to meet his eyes. "I've been here... a _long_ time."

Derek seemed struck by the fact I wasn't making a joke. A grim new look of seriousness instead found its way onto his face. His brow hardened, stiffening over eyes made of ice. The look he had, though, was more concerned than anything else. When I didn't say anything more, he prodded on. "What do you mean?"

Huffing another breath, I shrugged again, turning away. "I don't know..." against my will, my voice quieted. "Usually in the fall and winter like this if I get sick or something they keep me here three or four days and then I go home. I've been here for like, two weeks, Derek."

"And?"

"And... I think something's wrong."

His nose crinkled. "There's nothing wrong with you." He closed the distance swiftly, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. Leaning over, his hand came up, fitting against the crook of the back of my neck, thumb running against the curve. The intensity with which he stared into my eyes was almost intimidating. "You're going to be fine."

His hand pulled away. I looked back down.

"Now teach me how to play this stupid game."

I did. I did teach him how to play it. And the dumby gave me a run for my money, too. We'd talked about playing the game for a while, only because I used to love playing it with Scott. Whenever I asked Derek about it, he'd just brush it off, acting like he'd never read the series and all. But about ten or twenty minutes into the game, it became very obvious that Derek had totally read the series. And watched the movies.

"You totally watched all the movies!" I accused him at one point.

He just looked at me. "Who hasn't?"

The game was on its last leg and all of the pizza was gone when I was struck with something again. Derek must've felt the change in the atmosphere because stopped staring in contemplation at the game board. I didn't realize this, but was instead absorbed in the texture of the floor; my eyes were glued there. I wasn't sure why, but my throat began to close.

"Stiles...?" Derek snapped me out of it a little.

I looked over to him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I..." my shoulders dropped. "I just realized. I'm afraid to die."

Derek's eyes sharpened and widened. "Who said anything about dying?" his voice softened, and he leaned in closer to me.

I didn't mean to, but instinctively, I recoiled. "I've never thought about it before. I wouldn't want to leave everybody, I knew that before. But I don't think I was ever actually afraid of dying..." I looked back up to him. "I'm afraid now. I don't want to die. I feel like... I have a lot more to do. I just... I don't know if I can do it."

"Do what...?" Derek's voice continued to get gentler. Part of me realized just how soothing it was, and little by little, I began to relax.

"Do anything. Have you seen me?" I laughed, but it sounded like the kind of laugh someone has when they're about to cry. "Derek, my legs don't work... I can't do anything..."

His hands suddenly gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him. My eyes began to sting.

"Stiles... Your legs don't have to work for you to be able to do _everything_. You are all that you will ever need."

I gave him a puzzled look.

With a sigh, he tilted his head. "Trust me, I know... people, we spend so much time trying to find the stars, trying to reach higher, get closer..." he closed his eyes for a second. "But Stiles, the stars are here with us, with every breath. And we don't know what's coming next, but when the time comes to go, we just get up and we move on."

There was a warm sensation on my face, and it was then that I realized I was crying. Slowly, tears had begun to streak in tiny rivulets down my cheeks. Derek's face came closer, angling towards mine. I closed an eye, and he placed his lips just above my lid. In soft, silent movements, his lips traveled across my face. They slanted against my forehead, right between my brows, then moved against the curve of my jaw. Brushing against my cheek, and on the tip of my nose. He kissed my face until I became sleepy and drowsy and warm.

Perhaps it was just our proximity, but... he was warm. Something that once may have rocked me so anxious and uneven, I felt more than safe when he gathered me in his arms and picked me up. Without so much as a word, he reclined against the pillows, lying back on my bed and settling me into the crook of his side. I took in a breath to say something, but he hushed me and kissed my lips and it was the most innocent, kind gesture I've ever received.

I nuzzled into his chest, closing my eyes and taking in the warmth he provided. Derek had always seemed distant to me, as someone who didn't feel things with the same intensity as I did.

But here, now? I wanted to lie like this forever.

Though, I didn't realize how much holding all of these things in had exhausted me, and also how much releasing them had added to my exhaustion. Before I could say anything or think about anything, I was falling asleep by Derek's side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tHIS ch APTER TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG TO WRITE  
> okay i know i will never take this long to write a chapter ever again  
> ps i was totally not listening to the ed sheeran album while writing this


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's wrong with Derek and something's really wrong with Stiles.

When I woke the next morning, Derek wasn't there anymore.

I mean, it's not like I could expect him to stay with me the whole night; he's his own person doing his own things and all that. But... part of me kind of wished that I had woken up to him still beside me. Mementos of last night's existentialism escapade lay about. The Harry Potter Scene-it had been put back in its box, by Derek, I figured, and the pizza box was struggling to fit in the trash can like when a kid tries to stick the yellow box into the circle hole. My bed wasn't the only thing that was relatively empty, though. I felt empty inside.

Not like, oooh, my heart is so broken, empty. But like, my insides hurt. Everything was hurting and it wasn't just that I had eaten too much pizza. There was a distinct rhythm of throbbing in my head that pulsed in the back of my skull like my brain was hitting the insides of its bone cage. I was thankful that the lights weren't on and my blinds weren't open. Who knows how sensitive my eyes would be. Sitting up made me dizzy, and with a sharp pain that sizzled like electricity down my spine, I realized that there was soreness in my neck and back where there hadn't been before. Granted, my back was sore a lot nowadays, but this was different.

I could almost feel the bags under my eyes.

Wincing, I reached for my phone, pulling it out of my pocket. Carrying out my first instinct, I dialed Derek's number. It rang nine times and went to a voicemail. With a sigh, I tried again, and there was no response, again.

Against my better judgement, I didn't even bother to look at my organized compartment of pills, instead swinging myself into my chair, kind of falling into it sloppily, and heading out into the hallway. For some reason, I wanted to go somewhere, but I didn't really know where I was going. I felt irritated, and my skin was hot and prickling uncomfortably. My head was still swimming.

Discomfort aside, I wheeled through the hallways, not noticing when some nurses saw me and paused what they were doing. Hah, I must've looked a mess. Which was kind of a good thing, because that's how I felt.

I got halfway down the hall when something hit me. Not a realization, not literally, but a feeling. Of illness. This hadn't happened in a long time, but the pain of when it happened before returned like some kind of spontaneous recovery; reflexively, I pushed myself over to the trashcan in the hallway outside the restrooms, grabbing it and tilting it towards me before my neck craned forwards and I retched the contents of my stomach into it.

The nurses had already been eyeing me, and so it didn't take long for them to rush over. I couldn't focus though, I was still heaving, I couldn't even breath in between. I thought I could hear Miss McCall's voice through the fray, but in my mind, all of my senses were dulling and blurring together. Something happened that I couldn't keep track of; I stopped throwing up and ended up back in my room somehow, still unable to really focus on anything but instead sitting there with a sensory bombardment of everything going on and my headache flaring up. There was a sharp pain in my arm that I could recognize as a shot of something, and after a few minutes, my ears stopped ringing. My vision focused better and I blinked, frowning and looking up at the ceiling of my room.

I could tell from the lack of noise that the flurry of nurses had left my room. My neck ached something awful, but I turned my head anyway, and saw the outline of Miss McCall. Furrows in her brow told me she was worried; no surprise there. If she wasn't worried about me or Scott, it was always something. But she was kind like that.

With a squint, I offered a lopsided grin.

"Oh, yeah..." my voice was weaker than I had hoped.

Miss McCall huffed a relieved sigh and walked closer, smoothing the edge of my temple. "Hey, Stiles," she said with tones of comfort that only a mother could supply. "Are you doing okay?"

I nodded softly, but paused, and added a shrug.

"Listen..." she said, and my heart twisted a little. That word is a preface for only bad things to come. "I needed to talk to you but Derek swung by last night and when he left you were asleep, I didn't want to wake you up, and I mean, I meant to come in and tell you whenever you woke up this morning, but-"

"It's fine," I chuckled softly. It started to turn into some coughing, but I managed to hold it back.

Miss McCall sighed again and rolled her eyes at herself with a slight shake of her head. "Sorry," she said, managing to calm down a little bit. "But... I need to talk to you."

I lifted a brow. This was going south real fast. "About...?" my voice still hurt.

"Results from your regular testing." Right. I had been so absorbed in Derek that I had almost forgotten about all of the blood tests and scans that had been taken from me in the past few weeks. They had become a part of my schedule, like brushing my teeth. Miss McCall took a breath to speak again. "You're... sick."

"With what, common cold?" I wasn't too concerned about it. Miss McCall was usually over-worried about most things, because she's my nurse on top of the fact that I'm her son's best friend. It wasn't too surprising that she was acting this shaky and uncertain. I mean, maybe a little.

"It's pneumonia," she said, and her words hit me like a bunch of steel weights. At the time, I wasn't really sure what it meant for me to have pneumonia, but I did know a little bit. I knew for someone with paraplegia, like me, it was bad news. Really, really bad news. After this, we talked a little bit about it. She told me about how it had started to cause inflammation in my spine, and that it would pass, but my immune system was doing a really shitty job and it would be way more rough than it would be for a healthy person. Or at least, someone with the ability to move their legs. I saw in her eyes that she wasn't sure what the effects of the illness and inflammation would be on me, but she didn't mention anything else about it.

That morning was the last time I had left my bed for a long while. Now that the tests had come back and I was sick and all that, the doctors showed up and set up the IVs. It had all happened before, but that didn't change the fact that it made me nervous. What really got to me was when they set up a big oxygen tank and the tubes that were supposed to go under my nose, should I need it. Just staring at it unnerved me, like it was some sort of foreshadowing, watching me and waiting for me to falter.

My medication went up, as well. I had nurses explain all of it to me, and give me the run-down of what they would have to do every day. My movements were restricted too. Obviously. I wasn't allowed to leave bed. It was like the crash all over again - hooked up to IVs, unable to move. I was beginning to unravel.

 

\--

 

A full day passed without any contact with Derek. I had called him a few times with no answer, but I didn't do much other than that. I couldn't do much other than that. I found myself growing very tired, and too nauseous to really hold down anything except crackers, water, and jello. I felt tired, not just my mind, but in my bones, like all I wanted to do was slip into a sleep that could last for a million years. And it was like that, kind of. I slept most of the day. My father came in and out a lot, actually, taking some time off from his duties.

That afternoon, though, my phone began to vibrate, and I was awake for a change. With a slight wince, I reached out and grabbed the phone, answering it without another thought.

"Hello...?"

"Hey, man, you okay?" it was Scott. Part of me was disappointed it wasn't Derek, but at the same time another part of me was relieved.

I smiled slightly. It had been a while since we talked or hung out, and honestly, I was starting to miss my best friend. "Not really," I gave a little bit of a chuckle.

"Oh... Well... Listen..." There it was. He and his mom did the same thing when they were about to deliver news.

I huffed. "Scott, what?"

"I need to talk to you," he said. "About Derek."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i took a break from this because school started and everything was in the way and i really needed a break, but for some reason i looked back on this and genuinely wanted to finish it?? so thats what im gonna do y'all


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott comes over to share some information with Stiles. Anxiety and pneumonia are a helluva combination and neither are good for Stiles' condition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the last time I updated this was 2014 I have no idea. I was not planning on ever finishing this fic, but I've been receiving some really nice comments and have decided to finish this once and for all! There are only about four or five chapters left, at least in my notes that's what it is, but if anyone is still following this fic, I wanted it to have some closure. For anyone wondering, I am now finishing my first year of college. I stopped watching Teen Wolf after season 4, I think, but I still enjoy the Stiles/Derek ship, just know that I did not watch the latest seasons. But yeah, enjoy!

Things that had happened:  
1) Scott knew some information about Derek  
2) There’s someone else involved  
3) My dad was involved?  
4) If Scott’s pulling any shit I was going to deck him in the face and not even my wheelchair would be able to hold back my inevitable wrath, he would not be safe and no one would be safe

For some reason Scott decided he “couldn’t tell me yet,” whatever that was supposed to mean. Which meant I had to wait in agonizing purgatory for the rest of the day until whenever he decided to show up and tell me what was going on. Derek was safe and sound; that had been my first and most important question. Once Scott had assured me he was okay, I had been both relieved and angry. I know Scott meant well, he always did. We had been through so much together and there was a reason why we were best friends. But with Derek, I couldn’t help but feel like Scott was always looking for a reason to criticize him or invalidate whatever it was with us.

Maybe he was being protective of me? I don’t know, I’d never been in a situation like this before. Maybe Scott wasn’t used to not getting attention and was just trying to find a downside to me and Derek, as horrible as that sounded and as shitty as I felt for thinking it. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Either way, I wouldn’t know until later.

I wanted to spend the day finding something to preoccupy myself, whether it be following Miss McCall around the hospital or finding something to do in my room, but neither was possible. My body felt like lead, and I found myself just slipping back into bed. Even that had been a chore.

It wasn’t just “getting in bed,” it was the bending, the reaching, the twisting. Each motion seemed so difficult. I’d only been sick for a day two but already I felt like I couldn’t remember a time my body didn’t feel so heavy. I laid down, and couldn’t even find a thing to complain about with the hospital bed. Normally I’d have so much to say, but at this point I was just tired.

Miss McCall woke me up later. When I opened my eyes, I saw through my blinds that the sun was starting to set. How long did I sleep for?

“Hey,” she said, putting her hand on my back. “How you doing?”

“Oh, I’m okay?” I wasn’t sure. I stirred slightly, turning over and sitting up the best I could. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost six o’clock,” she said, checking her watch. “I didn’t want to wake you up, but I think you should eat something.”

“Sure,” I said. “Is Scott here?”

“Scott?” she asked before shaking her head. “No, I’m not sure what he’s up to right now but he’s not here. I can ask him to drop by?”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Maybe he was going to come by later, I wasn’t sure. Our text conversation seemed so long ago. That nap really messed me up.

Miss McCall began to leave the room.

“Oh, hey,” I called after her and she turned around with her eyebrows raised. I paused for a moment, feeling a sense of embarrassment I wasn’t familiar with. “Can you… help me into my chair?”

It had been a long time since I asked someone to do that for me.

She helped me without asking questions, and for a moment I wondered how I got so lucky having my best friend’s mom as my nurse, a woman who had known me since I was young. She told me to go to the cafeteria and get something to eat. I made a plate of food but wasn’t able to get more than a few bites into it before feeling nauseous, so I ended up trashing it and going back to my room.

It was ten o’clock when Scott showed up. I could hear him coming down the halls, a whirlwind of awkward but slightly composed. I waited outside my door.

“Hey man, sorry I got caught up in something for lacrosse,” he began talking but I didn’t really want to hear it. I’d been waiting all day because he decided to call me with vague information and then didn’t even have the decency to explain it. I rolled my eyes at him.

“Scott, just tell me what this is all about.”

“Well,” he said, catching his breath, “it’s about your boyfriend.”

Okay, so that caught me off-guard. I couldn’t help but react like something hot had just touched my skin. I’d been meaning to talk to Scott about it, about Derek and I, but he just seemed so opposed to it so I hadn’t gotten around to it... 

“Look, Stiles, I don’t care if you’re bi or gay but Derek isn’t just your friend. I know you, remember? We’re best friends? Scott and Stiles?”

I couldn’t stay mad at him, and managed a bit of a laugh, wheeling back into my room and towards my desk.

“Okay, okay,” I waved a hand at him. “Was it really that easy to see?” How flustered I was around Derek? How much time I wanted to spend with him? How I was unable to fool him with my regular Stiles Stilinski patented faking abilities? Thinking about it, yeah, it was probably easy for Scott to see right through.

“Well yeah, dude,” Scott rested against the edge of my bed. “It wasn’t much of a puzzle to solve.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What?”

“You called me. And then didn’t tell me anything. And then made me wait until ten o’clock at night and showed up at my door. So what’s up, Scott McCall.” I’m sure he could feel my patience waning.

“It’s about Derek, well, kind of Derek, it involves Derek.”

“Scott, just tell me.”

“He’s been letting this girl stay at his house. Her name is Erica.”

Stay cool, Stiles. You and Derek are barely even boyfriends, this girl might be a family member, don’t get jealous, jealous is petty.

“Okay?” I asked, clearly a little miffed despite my grand efforts not to be.

“No, it’s not that,” he struggled for words. “Well, what you think it is, it’s not that. She’s got a reputation.”

“What, you mean like, promiscuous?”

“No, as a criminal.”

“Oh.” That, I had not been expecting. “You mean she’s like a fugitive?”

“No, not really, but she’s been going from place to place for a while, but apparently always goes back to Derek’s, or has been for a while. She’s into racing cars and shit. I got to talking to some people.”

“And?”

“And Derek used to race cars too.”

“Scott.” I put my hands together in prayer, settling them under my chin and taking a deep breath. “I do not give two shits about what Derek _used_ to do.”

“Listen, Stiles, I’m just saying that one of the first things I told Derek about you was that your dad is the sheriff.”

“And what, Scott? You think he’s using me? To what, clear his record for him? That doesn’t even make sense, Scott, I don’t even think it’s possible.”

Was it?

I did have access to my dad’s office, but that didn’t mean I could mess with records. They were still in the dark ages over there, a lot of their stuff was still analog. There was no way I could change that stuff, even if I wanted to. But that was besides the point. Getting to me so I can what, clear up some speeding tickets? That was just bullshit, it didn’t make any sense. So why on god’s green earth was I still nervous about it? Was I actually self conscious? My mind was moving too fast. It was bad news when it got like that. When I started thinking and couldn’t stop, that’s when rationality went out the window. I couldn’t let that happen.

“I just thought you should know,” Scott said. He looked guarded. Maybe I was too hard on him. He was only telling me this because he cared about me. But he also couldn’t get away scot-free because goddamn if he hadn’t caused me some anxiety today.

I took another breath.

“Okay,” I nodded to him but avoided eye contact. “Thank you.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No.”

“I can always get my mom if you-”

“Scott. You can leave now.”

I heard him put his backpack back on and walk out after some hesitation. He didn’t do anything wrong I just wasn’t in a place to be dealing with this. Or maybe I was just being touchy because it was about Derek. I don’t know, somewhere since I met Derek, things had stopped making sense. I would talk to Scott again soon, let him know I was okay and he hadn’t done anything wrong. But for now I was just tired, and I just needed sleep. I took the medication I needed before bed and changed and brushed my teeth.

It took all of my strength to pull myself into bed and pull the sheets over myself. My skin was beginning to feel hot, so I pulled my sheets back down. The exhaustion from the day was beginning to hit like weights, pushing me further into the bed. I needed a sleep like this.

I didn’t see Derek’s calls until the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put this chapter together pretty quickly, and I'm actually pretty eager to finish this fic, even though I left it in limbo for quite some time. A lot has happened since then. Hope you guys keep reading! Also please let me know if you ever started it when I first put the fic out there and are now reading the new chapter, because I would really love to know if someone has kept this fic around in bookmarks or something since the beginning but if not that's fine!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of the truths come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took really long again im sorry i swear im trying to finish this fic! there are two more chapters planned after this but it's winding down. sorry for making everybody wait. but thank you so much to everyone who continues to support me! the comments keep me going!

When I woke up, my body was sore. Everything hurt, so I just stayed in bed for another hour or two until it started to go away. That was when I finally checked my phone and saw the missed calls from Derek. There were three of them, which was unlike him. Usually he would call once, and text once, and that would be it until I responded.

Three calls? I opened my phone. What could he have possibly called me three times for? They seemed to have happened pretty late too, at one in the morning. Did he know about Scott?

That was impossible, right? There was no way he would know that Scott had been gathering all this information on him and his housemate or whoever. Erica, her name was. Scott had told me she went to our school, but I hadn’t been back in a while. As it was, I was just getting signed up for classes online, but that was a different matter.

Derek had sent me a few texts.

_I need to talk to you_  
_I’m assuming you’re asleep_  
_Please text me when you wake up_

I got up and dressed as quickly as I could, skipped eating anything, and sent him a text.

_im awake, whats up?_

After a minute or two he responded:

_I’m coming over_

My heart was heavy in my chest. Why did it feel like this? Maybe this was something unrelated, or maybe he just wanted to make sure I was okay, I didn’t know. But for some reason it felt so shitty. My body already felt like lead. There was a soreness in my back that spread like fire through my arms and up my neck, every joint and every bone sore from sickness alone. I knew I should tell Miss McCall as soon as I could, but right now it felt like there were more important things happening.

I was just sitting here waiting for Derek to show up, still worried about last night’s talk with Scott, and for the first time in a long time I was anxious. I was afraid.

_What am I so afraid of?_ I didn’t want to lose Derek. I trusted him, and I wanted him to trust me, I even brushed Scott off last night, so why was I still so scared?

Derek arrived at the hospital about ten minutes later. I could hear Miss McCall greet him where the front desk area was. I had tried my best to seem okay, health-wise. I had washed my face and brushed my teeth, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like shit. Wherever my clothes touched my skin, it burned, and even though I was dry, I felt like I could break into a light sweat at any moment. I had dodged colds in the past year, knowing getting one could be potentially life-threatening. So how the hell did I end up here?

“Oh, Derek!” I heard her down the hall and immediately became anxious. What did she have to say to him? “Do you think you can wear this? I’m assuming you’re here to see Stiles?”

“Yeah,” he responded lowly. He didn’t ask any questions.

“Just for safety.”

I heard the sound of his shoes in the hallway. When he appeared in the doorway, he still seemed confused from his encounter with Miss McCall. He held up a white surgical mask.

“Why did she give this to me?” he asked. There was an intense look in his eyes. I know Miss McCall hadn’t said anything to him about my pneumonia, which I was thankful for, but I couldn’t stop her from being careful. She was a mother.

I took a breath and rubbed my forehead a little.

“She’s just… nervous. Just put it on.” I didn’t think he could give me anything that would fuck me over as much as the pneumonia, but I couldn’t take any risks and I didn’t want to get him sick either. Derek pulled the straps over his ears. He walked over to my desk and pulled the chair out.

“Stiles,” he said, taking a seat. I didn’t look at him. “Stiles, did you know about Scott?”

I turned.

“What about him?”

“He’s been going around trying to dig up dirt on me. I know he’s your friend, Stiles, but seriously? He didn’t care that much about me until I started hanging out with you.”

“I know,” I responded a little weakly. Guilt hit me for some reason. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? “I mean, I didn’t know until now. Or, last night.”

Derek narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t angry, but I could feel some kind of energy coming off him. “Last night?”

The sickness was making me irritated. I scratched behind my neck, feeling like my shirt was plastered onto my skin. “He came to see me last night, okay? He was just going on and on.”

“About what?”

“You, Derek!” I spun my chair to face him. “You have a criminal record or something?”

He looked shocked first, but followed up quickly but pointing a finger at me and saying, “Barely!”

“I- what? Derek! That’s not what you’re supposed to say!”

“Sorry!”

“No, he was just… he told me you have someone living with you. Her name is Erica, am I right?” I could feel Derek’s breath catch. “Is it true?”

“Yeah, she… doesn’t want to go home.”

“I don’t care that she lives with you, Derek. I want to know how.”

“How what?”

“How you know Scott. How you knew him. Why did you come to the hospital that day.”

“He told me to bring that-”

I ripped the blanket off my bed and swung it at him. It’s lack of momentum made a sad show; it just flapped uselessly at him and swinging it took all my strength away. He grabbed the other end of it.

“Stiles!”

“It was too convenient, Derek! I know there’s something going on! You were friends with Scott, but barely! You never wanted to be friends with him! Why was it me?” I could feel Miss McCall and other nurses in the hallway, but she was whispering, holding them away from my room. I knew I was raising my voice but I didn’t care. It burned my throat, I felt my eyes sting.

Derek pulled the other end of the blanket again, forcing my chair closer. I threw the rest of it on top of him and buried my face in my hands feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.

“It was us.” I looked up to see Derek pull the blanket from off his face, letting the folds of it settle on his lap. “Erica and I.” He took his mask off and held it in his fist. Dark eyes avoided me.

“What…?” I didn’t understand.

“Erica and I. We were there that night.”

That couldn’t be possible. There was no way.

“Derek, I don’t understand.”

I could see him get angry, but not at me.

“Erica and I were in the other car that night, Stilinski! Erica was the one driving, she’s the one who blew through that red light. I was in the passenger seat.”

I felt empty, like I was getting far away from everything. His voice sounded like it was coming to me through another room or a filter. I felt so small. I wanted to be away from here.

“Your dad, when he saw that we were just, well, kids, he didn’t ever want to press charges. She and I were in the hospital. I broke two ribs. She broke her arm and clavicle. Her parents were so disappointed in her. She thought it was all her fault.”

My dad at the time would have never pressed charges, he was right. My father had been a broken man. I didn’t know how he did it.

“What about me?” I asked.

“That was Erica too. She found your mom’s obituary in the paper. She was obsessed with redeeming herself, so she looked you up. For a long time she debated whether or not she should say or do anything. She ended up just dropping it, and she’s still not over it. Forgiveness, redemption.”

“She thinks it’s her fault.’

Derek nodded. “She told me to look instead. To see if you were okay.”

“When was that?”

“A few months ago.”

“What? Have you been stalking me this whole time?”

“When you put it like that it sounds really bad… I don’t know, Stiles,” he shook his head, still avoiding my gaze. “I was just… looking out for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“No, but Erica did. I saw how you were doing. You could only leave the hospital for a week or two max before something sent you back. I just wanted to know if you were going to be okay. Are you?”

“It’s not her fault,” it had taken me a long time to work through it too. I just didn’t have the time or energy to blame anyone. I’d had too much hate inside me for far too long. “Tell her it’s not her fault.”

“Stiles.” I looked up and saw him. “Are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s a lie,” he kept his voice low, I knew he wasn’t trying to accuse me of anything. “Miss McCall out there, giving this to me. And you, you look awful.”

“Thanks,” I managed a sarcastic grin but my energy was shot. Derek could see right through me.

“Please, Stiles, just tell me what’s going on.”

I didn’t respond to him. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I just chewed on the inside of my mouth and looked away. Derek got up and made to leave. Part of me desperately wanted him to stay and make me talk to him. But he was too good for that.

“I’ll text you.” I could hear him walk down the hallway. I didn’t see him or Scott for the rest of the day.

Derek tried to text me like nothing from earlier ever happened, but it’s hard for me. Our conversation naturally kind of faded away as there’s less and less to keep texting about. Miss McCall made me eat something that night. The next morning I woke up sweaty again, and the nurse asked me if it’s worse or better than it was before. I couldn’t tell, I didn’t even feel like I was in a place to be gauging how I feel. It was all the same, just… shitty. Different levels of feeling complete and utter shit. One of the doctors I was familiar with came in and they did some basic tests, blood pressure, reflexes. They mostly wanted to listen to my lungs.

If I keep on my medication, they said, I should be fine, but it could easily get worse with how tricky my particular situation is. I should have been more afraid, right? Maybe it was just the sickness, but for some reason I couldn’t feel anything. Everything was duller.

In the afternoon I heard Scott bumbling down the hall. I hadn’t expected to see him so soon after whatever happened between us, but he must have known something was up, or his mom told him something had happened. He was being his usual self, it seemed.

“Stiles!” he whispered in a hushed tone by my door.

I was at my computer scrolling through Netflix.

“Scott!” I mimicked the sound of his whisper before turning around with a smile, an actual genuine smile. “I can hear you coming a million miles away, dude.”

“Wow, a million,” he said. I rolled my eyes and he sat down on the end of my bed, pulling his backpack off and around to his front. He unzipped it and handed me a Powerade from inside. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was.

“Thanks.”

“You okay?”

I took a few gulps in silence. “I guess. Why?”

“My mom told me Derek came by, and after what I told you, I just. Don’t know.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “it was weird. Come on, Miss McCall.”

“Dude, you can’t blame her, she’s thinks of you as her other son.”

“I’m not mad at her. Sorry I brushed you off the other day.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

“Right, speaking of sweat,” I pulled at the front of my shirt, trying to get some air to my skin.

“Yeah, you look like shit.”

“Oh thanks. I have pneumonia.”

Scott was quiet for a moment. “That’s bad, isn’t it?” There was a finality to his tone that didn’t sit right with me.

“I mean,” I shook my head, “yes, to answer your question. It’s bad. What, you worried about me?”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

I couldn’t place it, but something about hearing him say that to me made me feel like crying. My throat tightened up, but I was able to shake it off there. Just letting the weight of those words reach me felt strange. It was true.

“Thanks,” I said, “for coming back. For being here.”

“My pleasure,” Scott did a cheeky little bowing gesture. “We don’t really stay mad at each other for long, huh?” He was right.

He helped me through the rest of the day, and had actually brought some extra shirts from my house. I didn’t really think about the fact that I only wore the same shirts I’d brought to the hospital, and I didn’t realize how sick of it I was until I put on a fresh one. Scott and I did laundry there, he helped me organize my room, and while I ate in the cafeteria, he went across the street to the convenience store and bought me new soap and deodorant. It was all things I didn’t spend time on that much, but that made such a huge difference. I was still sick, but I was feeling a little better.

That night, I thought about how lucky I was to have him.

It was still dark when I woke up the next morning. Was it morning? Or just late at night? I felt too disoriented to know, instead groping around in the dark and trying to sit up. It felt like something heavy was on my chest, and when I tried to sit up there was a sharp pain in my side. Panic began to set in as I tried to swallow and had trouble, then coughing and having even more trouble doing that. A weak cough forced itself out of my body, but breathing in was like fire. For the first time in a long time, I pressed a button on the bedside table and paged the nurse.

That was the morning I found out what quad coughing is. The nurse pushed against my chest until the force was strong enough to bring the fluid out of my lungs. I spat the mucus into the sink and I didn’t go back to sleep after that. I sat awake in bed with nurses checking on me every so often. I told them they could call my dad, but not until later, so when it was seven they gave him a call and he showed up later. At least at that point, Miss McCall had clocked into work and could talk to him.

“Are you guys gonna have to do that again?” he asked them. His hand was tight on my shoulder but they still talked as if I wasn’t there.

“We might…” Miss McCall said, worrying the edge of her sleeve with her fingers. “It’s because people with spinal issues or any kind of paralysis sometimes can’t cough with enough force so we have to assist them. There are a lot of procedures much worse than quad coughing, but we got the antibiotics in early, so he should be okay.”

My dad shifted his weight from foot to foot, face twisting in concern and confliction.

“I want to be here more if it’s going to be that bad.”

“Dad,” I protested a bit, “I’m fine, it was one night, okay.”

“We’re still going to give you a check-up,” Miss McCall interjected.

And they did. According to the doctor, I wasn’t getting enough nutrients. Not eating, not moving enough. They scheduled me to move to a different room, and have an IV that evening. Miss McCall said she would help my move my stuff, and my dad planned on taking a few days off work to be here, but had to leave for the morning. My brain felt slow, taking a long time to process everything. Even when Miss McCall was loading some of my stuff and moving it to another floor in the hospital, it just felt like none of it was really happening.

I was up on the next floor, moving my stuff into the room. Scott showed up in the doorway. He looked a little worried, but if anyone had faith in me that I could shake this, it was him.

“Looks like I’ll have to take the elevator to come bother you,” he said, looking out the window down to my wonderful view of the parking lot.

“Just for a little while,” I set my laptop on my new bed. Somehow this room felt colder than my other one. “I’m about to kick pneumonia’s ass.”

Scott laughed at that, but went quiet.

“Listen,” he started.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Derek’s here.”

I looked over, blinking and looking away immediately.

“Oh, okay.” I didn’t know if I was ready to see Derek again after whatever happened. It wasn’t knowing that he was in the other car that night that was making me feel weird, it was just… something else. I couldn’t put my finger on it. The fact that he had been watching out for me the whole time? Out of guilt? I couldn’t claim to know Derek’s intentions. But it felt wrong.

“Please, Stiles, I just want you to talk to him.”

“Coming from you? That’s weird, Scott.” I wondered what happened to the protective Scott who had been sniffing for Derek’s intentions for the past week.

“He needs to know what’s going on with you.”

“About this?” I motioned to the new room around us. “No thanks. I don’t need him getting weird about me being sick.”

“At least make up.”

I thought for a moment. “Fine.”

Scott brought Derek in from down the hall and excused himself, saying he would be by later.

Derek and I talked. Kind of.

“Fancy new room.” I could tell he was trying to keep things light. Ish.

I stretched my arms out, smiling and trying to seem normal. “I go where the wind takes me, Derek Hale. I never stay in one spot for very long.” Which was hilarious coming from me, a paraplegic. Who had literally been in the hospital for weeks now.

Derek seemed to find some humor in it.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “About everything. But I just want you to know that whatever this started as, has changed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. He turned around and leaned his back against the desk.

“Me checking on you. I didn’t plan on this happening. This… whatever it is. That we have.”

“We really need to find a name for it, huh?”

Derek laughed again. It was nice to see him smile. He was starting to look almost as tired as I felt.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Tell Erica I said it’s okay.”

“Is it?”

I shrugged. “We’ve already lost too much time over this.”

Derek promised to bring me something next time, like candy. He told me he would tell Erica what I said. When he left, it still felt tense. There was something about it that didn’t feel the same as what we had before. I found myself wondering if this thing was ever going to be like it was, or if it’d been ruined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeeee idk anything about the law or vehicular manslaughter


End file.
